Islamophobia: troubling developments and the Luton connection.
The past few days have seen some worrying developments as far as I am concerned in community relations in our nation. Islamophobia is nothing new as Muslims will tell you. Yet a more active, committed and agressive Islamophobia seems to be emerging that should cause us all to think and work and especially pray harder than ever.
Regular readers of this blog will know that this is the subject that has remained at the forefront of my writing this past four months. I reviewed the state of things at the three month stage a month ago (Luton: Three Months in the News and an election over. What now? ) and have continued to post on issues directly related to Luton as well as Muslim-Christian / secular western society issues. For the full list of posts see Seeking Peace in Luton - and Multicultural UK
We are used to the constant outpouring of stories that point the finger at the Muslim community from the Daily Mail, the Express and sometimes - albeit in a more sophisticated way - the Telegraph. This past few days they have included a lot on Burqa's and veils (I posted A British city's opinions on the burkha and OK, lets talk about the veil, but accurately and without bigotry. ), and today a story in the Express titled Police give Muslims in cells compasses to pray to Mecca. (There is an amusing riposte in Islamophobia watch. )
More worrying has been a story of a young 11 year old boy converting to Islam - led along by controversial al-Muhajiroun leader Anjem Choudary. The shocking picture of a white boy aged 11 being 'converted' to Islam by radical preacher. There is a video on YouTube here. I am tempted to think this may be a direct statement by Choudary that he does not consider himself bound by the new guidelines for ethical witness that I have reported here: Ethical Witness - Muslims and Christians get to the heart of things. and Ethical Guidelines for Christian and Muslim Witness in Britain.
However we seem to be moving from a contempt by many towards the Muslim community to a more committed opposition to them.
First the Sunday Times reported this at the weekend: Bomb seizures spark far-right terror plot fear. While the police were only labelling them far right in origin, with 32 arrested so far, they did report that in a recent case plans of mosques were found. Later overseas papers have connected these facts. This of course builds on two incidents of fire bombing of mosques in the past two months. Mosque petrol bombed twice. of a mosque in Greewich, London, and in early May the fire bombing of a mosque here in Luton: May 5th - Sick: Mosque set on fire in Luton and May 7th - Leaders of all faiths in Luton condemn Mosque fire.
Second,yesterday we had a much stronger set of reports. Police fear far-right terror attack in the Guardian (and Far-Right extremists 'are plotting spectacular terrorist attack in UK', police warn in the Daily Mail) develop the story in Sunday papers about police concerns at far right plans to stir up community tension through a large bomb blast. The Guardian:
Luton, which has been at the centre of this growing agressive islamophobia, inevitably comes into focus. The image in the Mail is of a Luton protestor on May 24th. Luton's Lionheart, Paul Ray, thinks that means they are being suspected. He wrote about that yesterday. (I do not generally link to his posts or other that spread a message of hate.) I suspect it is that is unlikely that Ray or his local buddies are involved. They are too obvious, and I suspect Ray is not ideologically committed to such extremes of violence.
I will review recent protest developments in Luton and around the nation in a later post.
